Transcript

Speaker 1:
You’re listening to Rattle and Pedal, Divergent Thoughts on Marketing and Growing Professional Services Firms. Your hosts are Jason Mlicki and Jeff McKay.

Jason Mlicki:
So Jeff, before we start today’s discussion on how clients choose a firm, I want to put you in a time machine real quick. You want to jump in a time machine with me?

Jeff McKay:
No. Oh, is there a lot of room in this time machine?

Jason Mlicki:
There better be plenty of space or we’re just not going to get along. So you’re going to jump?

Jeff McKay:
All right, I’m on the time machine.

Jason Mlicki:
Are you ready?

Jeff McKay:
Yes.

Jason Mlicki:
Are you game?

Jeff McKay:
Yes, at the door.

Jason Mlicki:
We shut the door and we’re going to jump back eight years to 2012 and we’re going to port ourselves to some random events space in Chicago. And I’m sitting in this audience at an Association of Management Consulting Firms events, and there’s a discussion brewing.

Jason Mlicki:
Some pompous windbag in the front row stands up and says, “I think most professional services firms know why they’re hired. They just don’t know how clients hire them.” I look at the guy, I’m like, “Man, that’s a really astute observation. Who is that guy?”

Jason Mlicki:
So anyway, I seeked out, again, the pompous windbag and it turns out it’s you. I still tell that story only because that’s actually the moment our relationship began essentially as sort of peers and confidants.

Jason Mlicki:
I’ve written about that moment because I thought it was a really, really powerful statement and a very true statement in that in so many other sectors of the economy you can observe how things are bought, you can observe buying behavior at retail, but you can’t do that very well in professional services.

Jason Mlicki:
So that’s the topic of our conversation today. It’s sort of the topic that brought us together eight years ago and so we’re going to do it today with our listeners.

Jeff McKay:
Wow. It’s like an anniversary.

Jason Mlicki:
Yeah, it is. It is. And I was making fun of you but it really is an astute comment. So I go back, we did a podcast earlier, I don’t know when we did it, but on the four stages of buying that Rattleback has used for the last few years to frame sort of how clients go from never heard of a firm to working with them.

Jason Mlicki:
I think what we’re talking about today is a little bit narrower than those four stages, but sort of narrowing in somewhere between the phase of, hey, we have a short list of folks that we think we want to talk to and now we’re trying to get from shortlist to decision and a hire.

Jason Mlicki:
I think that’s really where we were trying to frame the topic, although we may bleed outside of that. So does that make sense?

Jeff McKay:
It makes a lot of sense. And it’s a very important topic. Even eight years ago I think about that, I’m like, “Wow.” I’ve thought about that so much. I think the whole content marketing, buyer persona, buyer’s journey stuff that’s become such a fad, is trying to answer that question.

Jeff McKay:
So it’s almost a timeless topic and I really don’t think anyone has the perfect answer to it because it is so dynamic. So I think this is going to be a fun conversation.

Jason Mlicki:
Yeah. I agree, it’s a timeless topic. It’s always, I suppose it’s always changing, but there’s a handful of fundamentals that probably never go away. One of the, I said this in the prep for the call, was to me making the short list is entirely a function of expertise and experience in these days.

Jason Mlicki:
So there may be other things in there, I’d love to hear you chime in. But the firms that end up in the short list for whatever the client’s problem is, have to operate at that intersection. That firm has to believe that the folks that they’re inviting into a conversation have the combination of expertise they need exhibited through thought leadership and experience that they are delivering on that.

Jason Mlicki:
That would be exhibited either through case stories or preliminary conversations or also through thought leadership. So are there other things that are critical for a firm to be on the short list beyond those two?

Jeff McKay:
Wow. Yes. The short list, it’s so funny. I really do think buyers want to get to a short list as fast as possible, right? Because in our society there’s so much choice and the choice is overwhelming and it can lead to a inertia and analysis paralysis.

Jeff McKay:
So I think getting to the short list for the buyer is really important. So making it easy for them to get there is critical for marketers. I think most marketers would probably be satisfied with making it to a short list, but I don’t think they should be.

Jeff McKay:
The reason I say that is if you look at that initial gate and we talked about this on the podcast, there’s the positioning as you said, around the expertise and the results. Do you demonstrate a level of expertise and results that make it obvious that you could solve my problem and does everyone have that capability? That’s the easy answer.

Jeff McKay:
But I think what’s happening in getting to that shortlist needs to go a step further and that is to position the face-to-face people of your firm to really begin to demonstrate and exploit the differentiation that happens there.

Jeff McKay:
This is an area that’s often neglected in professional services because sales and marketing is bifurcated, right? If we get you to lead, you take it from here, or marketing is just sales support. They really just do what they’re told versus positioning the people for the actual sales conversation.

Jeff McKay:
To me that’s the critical part of short list because you know if you’re an accounting firm and it’s a Fortune 500 company and you’re the big four, you’re on a short list already.

Jason Mlicki:
And there’s nobody else ever really going to get on that list usually.

Jeff McKay:
Right? And if you’re a strategy firm going for a Fortune 500 company, you’re essentially on the short list already. So those that have the big brands that buyers trust, and I say trust, is they won’t get fired for hiring Deloitte. They won’t get fired for hiring BCG.

Jeff McKay:
That’s all short list gets you, I think, is a brand that’s strong enough that it’s safe for me to buy from this list. But I think there is lots of opportunity to make it to a short list even if you don’t have that brand that makes it safe for purchase because not everyone is looking for safe. Some are looking for innovative, some are looking for atypical and how you position to get on that short list needs to take that into account, but it also needs to set up a more meaningful conversation face-to-face.

Jeff McKay:
We probably couldn’t even cover what that takes on a 20 minute podcast. But the bottom line is don’t just worry about getting to the short list, get to the short list and be in the strongest position on the short list for your people to have the real conversation and the real decision because chances are a decision may already have been made by the time the short list is made.

Jason Mlicki:
I have two quick comments then I want to talk about that last thing you just said. Comment number one is in many instances it’s worse than you described, right?

Jason Mlicki:
Meaning that marketing and sales are bifurcated and on top of that, the people that are actually going to deliver sometimes are sort of rarefied assets that aren’t going to come forward into a sales conversation until much later when it’s really serious and we know that there’s an opportunity here that’s substantial and meets the needs of both parties, right?

Jason Mlicki:
So, there’s experts behind the veil that are downstream and we’ve talked about this in our thought leadership work for years. This idea of how do you make those experts visible without making them pulled into early stage sales conversations that they don’t want to have with unqualified prospects. And there’s a lot of thinking we’ve put against that over the years. That’s sort of kind of comment number one.

Jason Mlicki:
Comment number two is to jump into something you said, which is really valuable. And we have past clients soon to be again client that I’ve always liked the way the marketing lead at this, it’s an architecture firm, thinks about this. He says, “Hey, we have this practice that generates a lot of noise and activity.”

Jason Mlicki:
When I first got here years ago, they were doing 250 proposals a year and their win rate is minuscule. My goal in the nine years I’ve been here was to be way more selective. And he’d, I don’t remember the numbers, but it was basically like we pursued five pieces of business last year. So he went from like 250 to five and he said, “And we won three out of five.”

Jason Mlicki:
So he’s like, “I don’t really care how many we pursue, I only care how many we win.” So he spends all of his energy on really working with the practice leaders to get much more selective about the business that they pursue.

Jason Mlicki:
So I don’t want to dismiss how important and critical that that is, and how to me, the best marketers are taking control of that versus just sort of letting themselves get run over by the practice leaders who value activity. Right? Who just feel like if I put my hat in the ring, eventually I’m going to get a deal. And it’s a numbers game and it’s not a numbers game of professional services.

Jason Mlicki:
This is not, you’re not selling some transactional service like printing or media or whatever. So those are two quick comments.

Jason Mlicki:
Then I wanted to jump into the third thing that you said, and now of course I’ve lost my train of thought on what it was. If I recall, you said a lot of times the decision may already have been made when the short list is developed. Was that where we left off?

Jeff McKay:
Yeah, I think oftentimes it is.

Jason Mlicki:
Yeah. Well let’s talk about that. So how do we deal with that? Do we walk away from those deals when we have that sense? Is that the best thing to do? Just say I don’t think we’re the right fit. Do we lean into the noise and say, is there a way for us to flip the decision that’s already been made and how do we maybe identify when that’s the case? How do we determine that so that we can make a thoughtful decision around that?

Jeff McKay:
That is a great question, the $100,000 question, and we touched on this a little with Brian Caffarelli in the Good Sale. Bad Sale and I know your idol, maybe that’s overstated, Blair Enns talks about how we take control of the situation here. I think it depends on the situation, right?

Jeff McKay:
Is the risk worth taking or not to pursue because professional services firms live and die by the billable hour and you can invest a lot of money in something that you’re just never going to move, but if you have capacity and you want to take the risk because there are some real upside, not just financially but reputationally or perhaps positioning for future sales, it makes sense and it probably makes a lot of sense if this is your ideal client.

Jeff McKay:
This is why I emphasize ideal client so much is they’re worth taking the risk for. But if it’s not your ideal client, I would walk away.

Jason Mlicki:
Let’s just play a hypothetical here. Let’s just assume that there is a short list and you’re on it and the decision is still open. That the client hasn’t really taking a hard position on they’re going to hire one firm or next or the other. Let’s talk about the factors that influence the decision making from that point forward. We’re looking at three or four folks. What are the factors?

Jason Mlicki:
The obvious factor is the one phrase that gets bantered around professional services marketing all the time. Clients hire people they like. So there’s that piece. There’s likeability, the sense that we can work together.

Jason Mlicki:
This is when that comes in. I’ve made this argument for years that that statement is overly simplistic because it applies to this one very narrow slice of the buying process, not the entire buying process.

Jason Mlicki:
So all the learning, the vetting stages we’ve talked about and the four stages, podcast, likability is not a factor there. Right? But it’s a factor now. So likability is certainly one. Is this someone we want to work with?

Jason Mlicki:
Let’s talk about the other factors beyond that that clients start thinking about when they’re trying to whittle down from a handful of options to one option. Then I have a thought but I’ll let you chime in first.

Jeff McKay:
No, I want to hear your thoughts.

Jason Mlicki:
So my first thought is that so much of the learning process is driven by thought leadership and IP. So many firms sell air. Some firms have more tangible outputs, architecture, engineering firms, but a lot of consulting firms, they’re just selling air, they’re selling their expertise.

Jason Mlicki:
So thought leadership is the tangible demonstration of that expertise. So to me, one of the critical things from getting to vetting to hiring is showing that the thought leadership is actually applied through methodology and process.

Jason Mlicki:
So it’s one thing to say we’ve got, and we’ll use the challenge of sales as an example, as we’ve talked about through the years, we’ve got this philosophy on how B2B selling should happen now, and we’ve built a book on it and we’ve marketed a whole bunch of IP around this.

Jason Mlicki:
It’s another thing to actually translate that into a real methodology for how we apply that in your business. A lot of times what we see is that those two things are, to your point of marketing sales and being disconnected, they’re not connected.

Jason Mlicki:
So the thought leadership creates the interest, but then the solution design that’s put forth isn’t a logical extension from the thought leadership. It’s just another solution and here’s how we do audit. But it doesn’t map to what was presented.

Jason Mlicki:
So that’s one thing that comes to mind and that’s sort of the seamless customer experience that you’ve talked about. This notion that, oh is this thing that I bought into when I was learning about your firm? Is it real? Do you actually do that or is it just window dressing to market the firm and get me to the table?

Jason Mlicki:
My sense is buyers are absolutely studying that piece to figure out if that’s … if it’s real or false.

Jeff McKay:
I do think buyers want that. I do think it is important. I don’t know how important it is at this stage. I think it’s really important when you’re getting ready to activate service delivery so that everybody is on the same page and they have the confidence of a methodology that it’s going to get executed.

Jeff McKay:
At this point where you’re trying to decide, and maybe I’m blending a another stage in there. I am blending another stage in there. But high level, yes. Here is how we think about it.

Jeff McKay:
They want to know what your point of view is and they want to see where this is played out in a relevant way for them. So I agree with you. I just want to put it a different enough degree.

Jason Mlicki:
Well, it depends a little bit on where they are in their journey. Right? And I’ll … You mentioned Blair Enns and I’ve … Blair has influenced my thinking a lot on this. But he talks about selling as change management and one of the changes that the buyer is going through.

Jason Mlicki:
So, they have this notion of, they have a fuzzy vision of what they want and they first need to be inspired that that vision can be real. So, that’s the first thing that has to happen. Ideally that happens in the learning stage before the conversation begins. But after the conversation begins, it might still be happening.

Jason Mlicki:
So to your point, that notion that we’ve mapped IP to solution there is not valuable because they still need to be inspired. Now once they’re inspired and bought into the future vision, now they get scared, they get scared and they think about all the risks and all the pitfalls and their mind escalates the potential downsides and de-emphasizes all the potential upsides.

Jason Mlicki:
And that’s when seeing process, methodology and solution design against IP is so critical because that’s when you’re reassuring intent. You’re saying to them, “No, it’s going to be okay. All those fears you have are not as scary as you think because we’ve designed for them.”

Jason Mlicki:
So, there is probably a mushy zone between inspiration and reassurance, that’s somewhere between vetting and discussing and hiring. And it’s probably not the same every time, but it’s … So I guess in a very long winded way, I agree that it’s probably gray, the value of that.

Jeff McKay:
Yeah. Well it’s, but it’s so critical. It’s a critical thing for marketers and business development people to understand when and where does a process or methodology play. In my experience, process and methodology is more important to the seller than it is to the buyer.

Jeff McKay:
Yes, the buyer wants to check off that. There’s some rigor behind this intangible. The one thing that annoys me as a buyer, but I know that buyers are annoyed by, is having to sit through an explanation of some firm’s methodology. Buyers just don’t care. They want to talk about themselves.

Jeff McKay:
So the degree you’re going to fold in a methodology, it should be folded into a dialogue with the client about the problems they’re having or the aspirations they hope to achieve and to help them understand, and you kind of alluded to this just a second ago about your understanding of their issue, the problems that they could run into and how they are going to be addressed in your methodology.

Jeff McKay:
For example, you’re going to say, “Hey, when we get ready to sign this contract, procurement is going to come in and procurement is going to have this type of issue with it. We aren’t even to client service delivery, we’re pointing out the types of issues that they’re going to run into no matter what vendor they choose. But we understand those issues and we’re going to help you deal with them on the front end.

Speaker 1:
You’re listening to Rattle and Pedal, Divergent Thoughts on Growing Your Professional Services Firm. Your hosts are Jason Mlicki, principal of Rattleback, the Marketing agency for Professional Services Firms and Jeff McKay, former CMO and founder of Strategy Consultancy Prudent Pedal.

Speaker 1:
If you find this podcast helpful, please help us by telling a friend and rating us on iTunes. Thank you. Now back to Jason and Jeff.

Jason Mlicki:
I agree with you except you jumped around the buying cycle a little bit too much for me. So there was a stage in there where you were kind of implying that we’re at an early stage and we, the firm don’t really fully understand the client’s, you know, problem and hence we’re ramming methodologies down their throat. I don’t think that’s ever a good thing.

Jason Mlicki:
So, I agree with you there that that’s not a good, that’s not something that should happen. But then you also tossed in discussions about pitfalls you’re going to face post contract with procurement or whatever. And that’s very late, right? That to me decision is locked in.

Jason Mlicki:
Now we’re talking about how we get things off the ground and then that logically, yes, the client has tons of those concerns and questions that they face.

Jason Mlicki:
So I think conceptually, again, if we’re talking short lists to decision, what are the factors there? Likability is one. Potentially methodology and process, probably later on, on that coin. What else factors in here? What are the other things that go into the buyer’s mind about who we’re going to hire?

Jeff McKay:
What I was alluding to there, I’m talking very much before contract or signing. The two things I think are important are, one, being helpful, help me make a smart buying decision. The firm that looks beyond just itself and getting this sale and tries to help me make the best decision for me as a buyer from that short list.

Jeff McKay:
I would argue that begins at the very beginning of the buying cycle and is partly what I was alluding to about how we position ahead of the short list. But be helpful for me or helpful to me in terms of not just solving my problem but negotiating the complex sale. Because when we’re in the room with a given client, it’s not going to be a single buyer in the room, no complex sale ever is.

Jason Mlicki:
It’s going to be 11.2 according to Gardner right now. And it was 6.8 seven years ago. So I don’t know if those numbers … Those are pretty close to accurate to what they say. So anyway, keep going.

Jeff McKay:
Right? So, I mean there are going to be people in the room that don’t want your solution, there are going to be people in a room who don’t want an external solution. There’s going to be people in the room who don’t even see a problem. Those all have to reconcile to get to some solution for the economic buyer.

Jeff McKay:
So we have to position our solutions with each one of those people and what their buying criteria, where they’re coming from. So it’s never monolithic. It’s very complex.

Jeff McKay:
And this is why business developers make lots of money, is that they have to manage all of these different personalities and agendas going on in the room and being helpful in helping those key people achieve their hidden agendas or not so hidden agendas is really relevant.

Jeff McKay:
So I think having a mindset of being helpful is critical. And helpfulness comes in many different ways. One is an understanding of the industry or the issue and your expertise and delivering your results. But there’s also a lot of helpfulness about other issues within the company, buying company.

Jason Mlicki:
I totally agree with you. In a way, the notion of being helpful, it’s almost a cultural issue that cuts across the entire buying journey. Right? A firm should have that hardwired into their DNA, that that’s sort of why they’re doing the things they’re doing. That’s why they market. That’s why they produce thought leadership is to help the client and they’re trying to help them through the sale.

Jason Mlicki:
They’re, the whole disposition of delivery should be about helping the client move forward to a place of advantage. The most successful firms probably throw in that all the way through.

Jeff McKay:
You might be surprised how many people do that. I guess, because we’re probably running short on time, I can hear Jason Mlicki’s voice in my head, we need to move to wrap up.

Jason Mlicki:
Okay. Do the obvious one because I don’t know that I agree with you there. Most firms I’ve dealt with have a pretty strong client oriented disposition, at least philosophically. It may be difficult for them to deliver on because they face so many short term pressures to make sales targets and all these other things that get in the way, but deep at its core, most people I’ve ever dealt with in professional services fundamentally want to be helpful to their clients at every point.

Jason Mlicki:
Now there may be all kinds of things that block that from happening to your point. I think philosophically that’s a very true statement. What were the obvious ones? Let’s get the obvious ones. We are running out of time and my time machine won’t work now, it only worked at the beginning. It’s still on beta, so it’s a 1.0 product right now.

Jeff McKay:
Okay. When we’re done recording, I want you to go back to that list of your clients that you just assessed about being helpful and reassess based on how many of those firms would actually recommend one of their competitors to a buyer when their firm was not the best fit.

Jeff McKay:
Maybe they were 60% fit and then we can have a conversation about that. I think most firms, they figure I’m 50% or 60% there, I’m all the way in on this one.

Jason Mlicki:
Yes. But I would also argue that most of that is, lack of doing that as hubris. It’s a belief that our solution is always superior than our competitor’s solution. I would say most firms fall into that gap, that they see very rare instances where the competitor’s solution is ever better.

Jason Mlicki:
Now, will they look for the perfect match? Yes. Will they say, well our solution isn’t the right fit at all because that’s not in our wheelhouse, you should go over there.

Jason Mlicki:
But if they think it’s expertise they have, they’re never going to acknowledge that their expertise isn’t as good as their peer, their competitive peer firm, even if it is and they may not even know. So anyway, let’s get to the obvious one because we’re out of time.

Jeff McKay:
That’s a great segue to the obvious one. The obvious one is trust. Do I trust you? I’m smart enough as a buyer to know when your firm is not a good fit and you’re reaching in a way that maybe you shouldn’t and it’s going to erode trust. Whereas saying, we’re not really a good fit here.

Jeff McKay:
You might want to select this person or that person because they’re really good at that and that’s just one element of the trust building process at this point. Going back to our earlier discussion about methodologies and process, if consultants come in and they want to talk about methodology and process and try to squeeze me as a buyer into it, they’re going to lose credibility and I am not going to trust them because I feel like they’re not listening to me.

Jeff McKay:
They’re not hearing me. They’re not thinking through what makes me special. Most firms don’t do that. They want to get in there, I’m on a short list. Let’s practice our presentation and who’s going to deliver our process slides and who’s going to talk about the proposal or who’s going to talk about the team we’re going to put on it.

Jeff McKay:
I really don’t think clients care about that on the short list. What they’re trying to assess is who’s going to lead this and do they really understand me? Have they demonstrated that and do I trust them?

Jason Mlicki:
I think trust is the macro thing you’re trying to achieve really to get from short list higher as you’re trying to earn the client’s trust at this point. The things you can use to build their trust are, like you said, being helpful, being likable to some extent, whatever that, whatever we call that.

Jason Mlicki:
You can use solution design and process and methodology. I think you probably got a little bit over hung up on the notion of process and methodology in my comments on that, that it’s not necessarily about the methodology, it’s more just about is there a relationship between the solution we’re going to deliver and the IP that you came in the door on.

Jason Mlicki:
And if there’s not, then you’ve eroded my trust and in your particular case overly rigid methodologies erodes your trust. But in other client’s cases, rigid methodologies build their trust. Methodologies were built, great confidence and trust at the end of the buying process.

Jason Mlicki:
To your point of being helpful, I guess maybe at the end of the day the key to getting from short list to close is really all about active listening and being client centric and trying to understand the people in the room and what are their decision making priorities to the best of your ability and trying to put forward the best solution on their behalf and keeping that client centric vision throughout the whole thing and not letting yourself fall victim to your process, your pitch deck, your us, us, us, us, us.

Jason Mlicki:
So I don’t know if we found new ground here or not, but I do agree that trust is the central goal in this window. But what creates trust for one client or the next is probably different every single time.

Jeff McKay:
Yes. And where does it begin? Because we narrowed this down to two stages and it begins long before that because the one thing I just pounded into the cultures of the firms I worked for and my clients is that clients understand this one thing, how you sell me is how you serve me. In each interaction that they’re having from that marketing and sales interaction, they’re projecting forward about what it’s going to be like to be in engagement with you.

Jeff McKay:
Kind of like dating, right? You’re on that first day, you have this sitting across the table and the other person has this little Picadillo and you’re like, “Do I like that or is that going to annoy me 30 years from now?” That’s the way human beings are made.

Jason Mlicki:
All right, we’re going to take it to a wrap. I like that closing thought, how you sell me is how you’ll serve me and I think it’s a good place to end. So it’s a good way to think about it. Until next time I’ll see you in the time machine.

Jeff McKay:
Same body.

Speaker 1:
Thank you for listening to Rattle and Pedal, Divergent Thoughts on Marketing and Growing Professional Services Firms. Find content related to this episode at rattleandpedal.com. Rattle and Pedal is also available on iTunes and Stitcher.